Smoldered

by Rachel Blaufeld

  Asher opened his car door and slipped in. Stunned, I stepped back, walking backward, and watched him pull away. Just like that, he was gone. His stupid, expensive, ridiculous statement of a sedan quietly sped down the road, leaving nothing in its wake but a little dust, like the man himself had done to my life. He sped in and out, leaving only my hollow shell behind to take care of his son.

  Now with financial support.

  That Was Some Matchbox Car

  Mike

  Las Vegas

  PISSED OFF, I pulled onto the side of the tarmac at the charter aviation company and killed the engine of my SUV, then rolled down the windows as I watched the piece of shit’s plane land. How was I to know he was going to ditch Natalie when I called to tell him about Petey? I hadn’t been regularly talking to Lynx, and yeah, I knew she and Asher were cooking up a plan to get him together with Natalie, but how was I to know it was going down at the exact moment I needed him?

  I rubbed my hand over my face and flinched when I saw my reflection in the side mirror. My hair had grown out a bit; since Lynx moved to Miami, I no longer had a reason to keep it buzzed and clean. Greasy strands fell across my forehead, drawing attention away from my eyes, bleary and bloodshot from too much whiskey. That was good. Looking down, I noted my clothes were clean. I still had to work, run the Tunnel, especially with Asher down in Florida trying to make up for his mistakes.

  The asshole was definitely not fixing anything. In fact, he was only adding to the pile, screwing shit up even more than it already was. Now I had added to his problems for the second time in only a few short months with my fuckup.

  The plane taxied in, coming to a stop, and I leaned my forehead against the cool steering wheel. The car’s air-conditioning blew in my face, cooling my temper that was mostly directed at myself as I fought through the memories of the last twenty-four hours…

  I HAD been fucking up a little bit, heading into work with a drink or two in me, but I had a lot going on. Asher had never been one to monitor drinking on the job; in fact, he was known to knock back a shot or two himself in his own club. Still, I had the security of the girls first on my plate, so drinking should have not been happening at all. I needed to be ready to chase a bad egg or nasty perv at a moment’s notice.

  It’s just my life had been in the shitter. I’d only just been a part of making sure Sienna, now in private going by her original name, Lila, was safe and in love. Before that, I found my live-in girlfriend shacked up with my dad. Now, I had jacked up my closest friend’s life, and as a result he and the high-priced escort I cared for had hightailed it to Florida, leaving me to run the club—and my life—into the ground.

  Lila had been picking up a lot of slack at the club, taking over the business shit now that she had plans to get off the stage. The Tunnel’s reputation spoke for itself, so crowds were still pouring in, money flowing freely to the girls’ pockets and Asher’s.

  Then there was Petey. He’d been working furiously to keep everything status quo, not saying a word, minding his own business, and filling in wherever needed. My man, my number two, had pushed everything aside to help me run the place, probably doing more than he should have been.

  Last night, I had only rolled into work an hour or so before, having spent the afternoon down on the Strip dealing with a few casino hosts who were sending some people our way. They’d asked me to stop and have a drink with them, and who was I to argue? The couple of cold ones I had at home before heading their way added to the mix, and when I realized I had a decent buzz going on as I exited the casino, I called for the Tunnel’s limo.

  After coming in through the back entrance, I made my way to the front of the floor, checking on the girls onstage and the ones doing lap dances. Everything looked normal, and I had just sighed a breath of relief when Petey ran up to me.

  “Mike, fuck, my man. That dude, the one from the Ecstasy incident back a while ago with Nat? He’s outside, demanding to get in,” he said as he gave me a fist bump.

  “Shit, let me go out there and get rid of him.” I started moving toward the door.

  Petey was hot on my tail. “You okay, Mike? No offense, but you kinda reek. Want me to handle it? It’s no big deal.”

  “I got it, man,” I said with a wave of my hand, dismissing him, but he still followed.

  I blew through the main door, coming up behind Billy, who had been keeping the peace outside. Wouldn’t you know that asshole who had been thrown out just months earlier was making a royal stink.

  “I’m a fucking lawyer,” the dude yelled at our youngest bouncer, “and you got no right to keep me from a good time.”

  I put my arm around the lawyer and started walking him away from the crowd. “Listen, man, we don’t want any problems. Let’s you and me just talk about this, maybe come up with a different place for you to have a good time—not jail, where I’m going to send you if you keep harassing my guys.”

  The guy had the nerve to push me, or at least he tried to, but made little headway.

  I might have had a little bit too much to drink, but that fucker was lit up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife, then started to wave it in my face. Petey who had been watching from afar, was now up on the guy, gently suggesting he leave quickly.

  But the jerk didn’t want to listen and kept waving that stupid little knife in our faces.

  Petey went for the phone in his pocket to call the cops. I’d wanted to avoid that, but this guy was a class-A douche.

  The sight of the phone lit a fire under the dude’s ass and he started to run. I didn’t know why, we should have let him roll, but Petey ran after him. He yelled back at me as he sped off, “I’m gonna get that fucker arrested. After what he’s done, he’s gonna spend the night getting an ass-rape in jail.”

  And then he took off like lightning, running after the waste of life. Petey was looking down, trying to shove his phone back into the pocket of his stupid tight leather pants, when a goddamn bright green Porsche convertible, music blaring, came speeding out of nowhere on two wheels. It hit the curb and flew right past Petey, clipping his leg hard as it flipped over the curb and went like a tumbleweed across the sidewalk, finally coming to a grinding, ear-shattering halt a hundred yards away.

  Pretty sure I almost pissed myself as my whole body broke out into a sweat. I was standing above myself, watching as I ran to my friend, my coworker, the guy who had just stood up for my drunk ass. Vaguely, I heard Billy take control of the club, keeping everyone who was already inside there, while at the same time letting in all the people who had been waiting outside so they were far away from the scene. As he radioed to the inside guys, I had one mission. Petey.

  I dialed 911 as I raced toward where Petey lay crumpled on the concrete. His face was contorted with pain and his eyes were wide, his breath coming fast and jerky as I yelled at him not to move, then tried to talk to the emergency dispatcher. His leg—oh God, his leg. I couldn’t even look at it.

  The first responders came fast, too fast; they had reason to lurk near the club waiting for crime. The convertible was a mangled mess of steel, and I didn’t care about what happened to the driver, but the paramedics apparently had to check.

  After they determined the driver was beyond their help, they focused their efforts on Petey. Horrified, I stepped back and watched as they stabilized his crushed leg, strapped him on a gurney with a neck brace, then shoved an oxygen mask over his face while they shouted questions at him, asking if he knew his blood type. Apparently in shock, he wasn’t able to answer, his body convulsing as blood seeped through the bandages they placed over his severely damaged leg.

  Unable to breathe, I leaned over and placed my hands on my knees, bracing myself against fainting, taking large gulps and feeling like I’d just run a marathon.

  No patience for the police when they tried to question me, I’d told them, “Catch me later, I gotta get to the hospital,” as the ambulance raced down the street. Fuck ’em. Where had they been when the ca
r was speeding on two wheels?

  I’d slammed through the emergency room doors just as they were pushing Petey into surgery. The last thing the nurse had said to me was, “Sir, your friend is O-negative and needs a lot of blood. Do you know if he has any close relatives?”

  NOW I sat in my SUV, stone-cold sober, weeks of Jack still seeping out of my pores. Watching my boss run toward my car, also no doubt dry as a bone, I was jerked back to reality. Asher had no family, at least he didn’t think so until a month ago when he found out he had a kid. Now he had picked up and left his son to help his club family.

  I would have thought Asher had the Tunnel running through his veins, but it was actually O-negative, and he felt obligated to come and donate some of his obviously ice-cold shit to Petey.

  Ship Sinks Yours

  Asher

  I HOPPED in Mike’s big truck, not bothering to buckle up, just grabbed hold of the bar above the window and said, “Let’s go,” while smacking my other hand on the dash. He nodded and turned on the ignition, pulling away from the tarmac with the windows down, the dry air floating through the car. My lungs questioned their sudden locale change; they had only just adjusted to the moisture hanging in the air in Florida.

  It was early morning and the sun was breaking over the horizon. I had gone straight to the airport after deserting Natalie, flown all night back to my hometown, the time difference working in my favor. I arrived in Vegas in time for Mike to get me to the hospital for the doctors’ morning rounds, which was good, because I had a lot of questions for them.

  Sucking on a water bottle as Mike pushed the car ahead, I finally found my words. “So, tell me again what happened. And don’t leave anything out.”

  Mike went on to explain the guy who had tried to slip Natalie an Ecstasy had come back, trying to push his way back into the club. The dude had shoved Mike and the other guys around, then pulled a knife and had taken off running when Petey threatened to call the cops. Mike gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles as he described the car careening in on two wheels and Petey not seeing it.

  When Mike hung his head and admitted to being drunk, I said, “I don’t give a shit about that. This wasn’t your fault. Probably mine. I was an asshole the way I just picked up and left. I thought I could drag Nat and my son back here if I waited long enough, but I was wrong. I was an idiot to leave my club and my club family behind.”

  He waved me off, still assuming the blame. “Nah, this is on me, Asher.”

  His skin pale, Mike described what they had to do to Petey’s leg. There were tiny pins and big broken bones and future skin grafts and physical therapy, so much shit my head was swimming with details, unable to process it all. My buddy had had two transfusions already, and probably needed another one.

  “Shit,” I said as I shook my head. “It’s really something, me and him having the same blood type. So rare, but I’m glad as fuck. Did you set me up to donate as soon as I get there? I need to do something after deserting all you guys. God, I’m a fucking shit, leaving my club and the only family I got for something that’s never going to happen.”

  “Yeah, I got you registered to get in and give blood.”

  “Well, I’m gonna give it and check on my man, Petey. Then I gotta go to the office, straighten this out with the cops before I go home and check on my house.”

  Mike turned to look at me. “What? Why home? Aren’t you going back to Florida?”

  I shook my head before lowering it in shame. “Nope, that was a pipe dream. Nat and me and Quinn, being a family? She doesn’t want me, and I finally get it.”

  Mike turned his eyes back on the road, but he stayed silent, urging me on.

  “My family is here with the Tunnel—Lila, you, Pete. Christ,” I said as I ran my hand through my dirty hair. “Damn it, I knocked Natalie up during a threesome I don’t even remember. She had my baby, provided for him, was both his mom and dad because how could she come and tell me what happened that night? It makes me sick just thinking about it. Imagine how she felt. So, nope, I’m not going back. I told Nat I’ll send money, make back payments, let her get on with her life. I’m nothing but a piece of shit, anyway. Quinn doesn’t need that.”

  We pulled up to the hospital, and when I moved to get out of the car, Mike grabbed my arm. “Don’t let yourself be consumed with self-hatred, Ash. Look what you just did for a friend.”

  I gave him a chin lift and got out; I’d already made up my mind on the flight from Florida to Vegas. For five hours, all I thought about was how I had no business having a son. I might have money, fancy cars, and bikes, I might live in a big house, but I was nothing but a deadbeat, like my own father. And I’d never even met the man.

  History had a funny way of repeating itself.

  MY BOOTS beat heavily on the shiny linoleum floor as I held up my arm to inspect where I had just given blood. Mike walked next to me in his high-top tennis shoes, both of us in our standard club clothes—T-shirts and ripped jeans. On our way to check on our friend in his hospital room, we were about as out of place as a couple of kids in a casino.

  Petey lay asleep in the hospital bed with monitors beeping, IV tubing running in and out, and his leg supported by a huge air pillow. Mike and I settled our large frames in the flimsy piece-of-crap hospital chairs, taking in the raw sight in front of us. Together we breathed the antiseptic-tinged air, witnessing firsthand how precious life can be. Neither of us were the type to get emotional and sappy over a cup of tea, so we didn’t speak, just took in the feelings swimming in the room, drowning us in reality, a testament to how fucked-up shit could get. Those emotions pushed down our testosterone and drew our feminine side to the surface.

  Tears pricked at my eyes. I’d built the Tunnel from a shitty nothing club to a major player in the adult entertainment business. I was a celebrity in Vegas, my strippers were stars, and men acted like decent people at my club. Now Petey was down for the count, could have been dead, all because I ran off after Natalie and left my baby to fall apart.

  I smoothed my hand over my hair and down to my neck, then let it fall back into the cradle of my palm in my lap and breathed. In and out, in and out. This wasn’t Mike’s fault. I had put him in a terrible position when I went to Miami, but how was I supposed to know he knew about Quinn? If I would have let him explain, even go with me, it would have been better. But he couldn’t reason with me that night. I was a raving lunatic when I found out from Beck about the threesome, and put two and two together.

  I had pulled a gun on my friend, all because I was rocked with the knowledge that I had a son. Now my relationship with Mike was on the rocks because he took my side and let me fly off the handle, and his girl, Lynx, took Natalie’s side. If only I had let Mike talk some sense into me; he could have told me a lot sooner why Natalie didn’t tell me about Quinn.

  I have no business being a father.

  In general, I was a lousy person, no matter how many women I rescued and provided with a safe haven.

  I sat up straight, wanting to wake Petey and let him know I was here now. A little too late, but I donated blood, O-negative, which he needed. But I let the man sleep, more for my sake than his.

  Standing up to leave, I motioned to Mike I was heading out. He gave Petey one more hard look, willing him to be okay. I knew what the desperate look meant because I was doing the same. We stumbled into the hallway, two strong, normally confident men, barely able to walk a straight line. Not because we were drunk or high, but because reality had hit us like a monsoon wiping out a small village. We were human, not invincible, and reeling with the knowledge that we could be crushed, devastated, washed away like flotsam, and in the end all we had was one another.

  Passing the nurses’ station, I looked up, trying to figure out who could tell Petey for us that we’d been there and would be back. I barreled up to another pretty big old dude waiting by the desk; we stood shoulder to shoulder and waited for someone to help us.

  When a woman in scrubs walked out of a nea
rby room, he piped up first. “Hey, excuse me…I was called for Pete Clark. I’m his emergency contact.”

  Seeing as how he was yelling this to the nurse in charge, I wasn’t really eavesdropping. Turning toward him, I tapped him on the shoulder. I suddenly had a few questions.

  Who the hell was he? Here for our Petey? We’d only ever heard about Petey’s mom, who died of breast cancer a while back.

  His emergency contact? Bullshit. I’m his emergency contact.

  Not so patiently, I waited for the man to turn, and when he did, I was met with the only set of silver-gray eyes I’d ever seen, other than my own.

  The man who looked like an older version of me took one look at me and said, “Oh fuck.”

  Yeah.

  Quit Before It’s Too Late

  Natalie

  Miami

  STUNNED, I stood there in the middle of the sidewalk as more tears dripped down my face, chills making their way up and down my spine as my heart splintered. He’d walked away. Once again, Asher had gone without even glancing back. Just up and left me on the street corner to raise Quinn all by myself.

  Wasn’t that what I wanted? To raise my son without his father knowing?

  And who the hell is Lila?

  Why was Asher always racing toward some other woman? Any feelings that still remained for him, I needed to purge.

  I pulled my hair back behind my neck and gripped it like a lifeline, closing my eyes as I let out a long moan, then released it as I took stock of my surroundings. This was ridiculous; I was standing outside the day spa talking to myself. I had to get a hold of my emotions.

  Stomping back to my car, the serenity of the massage and the steam room a distant memory, I ducked into the driver’s seat, determined to forget this whole day. It was time I went back to my original plan to make a new life in Miami, and raise Quinn on my own as had always been the case.